Bagless vacuum cleaners often use cyclonic separation to separate dirt and dust debris from an airflow. Bagless vacuum cleaners maintain a consistently high level of suction, even as the dust collecting container incorporated into the vacuum cleaner fills with dirt.
A bagless vacuum cleaner is a vacuum cleaner, which instead of utilizing a flexible bag, which may be disposable, for dust collection, uses a reusable container, which may be generally rigid, as compared with a bag.
The absence of a dust bag in the vacuum cleaner can make it difficult to dispose of the dirt and dust which is collected during the vacuuming. This can be solved by employing a removable dust collecting receptacle, which is easily disengaged from the vacuum cleaner body and emptied, and is for example shown in EP 1 825 798.
It is important that the inlet port of the detachable receptacle, which receives dust-laden air from the hose, seals tightly against the hose joint in the vacuum cleaner body, in order not to get leakage of dust debris into the housing of the vacuum cleaner. Further, a tight sealing between the dust receptacle and the source of vacuum is important, otherwise a reduced suction effect of the vacuum cleaner could result.
However, it is not desirable for there to be too tight a fit between the vacuum cleaner and receptacle, since this would make it difficult to easily attach/detach the receptacle to/from the vacuum cleaner body. A small amount of play between the receptacle and the body is hence desirable.
In order to get a tight sealing between a receptacle and a vacuum cleaner body having the necessary play between the two parts, conventional sealing elements, such as O-rings, are used in some prior art solutions. For example the soft-elastic seal used in U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,456 is of O-ring type. Using O-rings, however, it is still important to have a tight fit between the receptacle and the vacuum cleaner body, since the sealing effect of O-rings is highly dependent on the compression pressure.
Upon removal from or insertion of the dust receptacle into the vacuum cleaner body, the sealing element can be subject to great shear stress forces, which may result in wear and a consequent reduced useful life of the sealing element.
In WO0036964 the movement for detaching/attaching one part from another is substantially in the “axial direction” that is, a direction which is substantially normal to an opening in the receptacle, which is to be sealed to the vacuum cleaner body. This is in contrast to the “radial direction,” which is understood as a direction which is substantially perpendicular to the axial direction, and extends substantially from the perimeter of the opening and towards the middle of the opening. It is also understood, that the opening may have a planar or non-planar perimeter, and/or that the opening may be symmetrically or asymmetrically shaped. The axial movement in WO0036964 results in a reduced shear stress exerted on the seal during detachment and attachment.
This solution is not a general purpose solution, however, since not all vacuum cleaner constructions enable a detachment/attachment of the receptacle in a direction that is axial to the seal. Also, if the vacuum cleaner construction has more than one sealing connection between the receptacle and the vacuum cleaner body, an axial detachment/attachment of the receptacle relative to every sealing member is not simultaneously possible and thereby deteriorating shear stress forces will be exerted to some of the sealing members during the attachment/detachment.
There is hence a need for a detachable dust receptacle which can be detached/attached from/to the vacuum cleaner body, irrespective of the direction of the detachment/attachment relative the seal and irrespective of the number of sealing connections used to seal the receptacle to the vacuum cleaner body, without damaging the sealing element and with maintained sealing effect.